


Merlin Help Me, I Was Only Sixteen

by PoliticallyObsessedScholar



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Ideology, Loyalty, PTSD, Post-War, War, day in the life, mental health
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-22
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-11-17 07:17:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11270673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoliticallyObsessedScholar/pseuds/PoliticallyObsessedScholar
Summary: After the War, Draco Malfoy is persona-non-grata no matter what side of the war you were on. Inexorably, life goes on.





	Merlin Help Me, I Was Only Sixteen

Draco watched the sunrise from his families London townhouse. He'd already had it completely redecorated, of course, painted in white and accented with shades of purple. It was the furthest he could get from wartime colours. He smoothed down his robes with one hand that wouldn't stop shaking. It was mortifying, like he was a Wizard six times his age, but he couldn't stop it from happening. The effects of the Dark Arts were often more insidious than they appeared at first glance. 

His right hand, which had never been dominant before, was picking up his morning coffee and bringing it to his mouth. His right hand did a lot of things now. It cast spells with the precision of a third year (it had been a first year, three months previous so he was feeling slightly smug). It summoned house elves and picked up property. 

The fog in the park across the street was starting to dissipate, orange light spilling down just above the grass. He took his last sip of coffee, placed the cup gently back on the table, and wiped his mouth with a napkin. The morning was proceeding exactly as every morning had since the Trials started. His tenuous grip on his sanity held only by force of will.

He hated the Trials.

People looked at him like he had no loyalty. Aurors whispered about snakes as he passed and prisoners howled at him from their judgement seats. He thought it ironic. People didn’t understand his loyalty because it didn’t cleave neatly to ideology. They wanted so _badly_ for him to cleave to ideology. It was sad, he thought, as he stood and moved out the glass doors and onto the balcony proper, that their loyalty was so cheaply bought.

His mind, after all, had changed since he started Hogwarts. Not enough for someone like Harry Potter, nursed at Dumbledore’s cradle, but enough to have him cast aside by his family if he acted on it. He didn’t like mudbloods, it was impossible to, when they came into his world and talked about how quaint everything was, how much better it was out in the Muggle World - the same Muggle World that had burnt his great-grandfather and other family members at the stake, a world that still hunted down witches and wizards, or imprisoned them, or subjected them to exorcisms and abuse for the crime of existence.

How could he, when they didn’t understand the basics of the world they now inhabited and didn’t care to find out? When they talked so loudly about having no duty higher than their duty to themselves, when they atomised themselves from everyone who had led to their existence, when they divorced themselves from history and tradition? When they didn’t seek to understand the customs and rituals that surrounded them but demanded those who had grown steeped in the Wizarding World for centuries cede to their comfort and cultural whims?

The problem was that he tolerated them. That he didn’t want them and muggles wiped from the face of the earth. He had once, but he’d been a child, and as he’d said sarcastically to Shaklebolt when his allegiance was questioned on that count “forgive me for believing my parents when I was twelve. I’m sure you were already cynical and independent of mind.”

All of which meant he wasn’t marching to the war drums of genocide and power he’d grown up with or to the drums of muggleisation and presentism of those who opposed Voldemort. He stood only for one thing, no matter his personal ideals and beliefs.

He’d had his own trial, of course. It happened before all the other trials, after he’d been brought in by a shaking and bleeding Harry Potter. They’d questioned why he’d run after the Battle of Hogwarts, asked him why he hadn’t made his support overt.

He’d laughed in their faces. It was never about himself. It was about his family. He might not support Voldemort, he might have allowed Harry Potter to escape their clutches, might have occasionally passed information to known rebels via anonymous owl, and might have occasionally refused to torture a half-blood at Hogwarts, but it meant nothing if he couldn’t protect his family. He’d helped Voldemort in his sixth year to save their lives - even if he couldn’t complete the last step - and he’d ran with them when he knew they’d be arrested after Voldemort fell.

A millennia previous the Malfoy family motto hadn’t been bastardised by Blood Purity, it had simply declared - "Genus Nostrum Thesaurus Noster Est, Our Family is Our Treasure."

Coolly he walked over to the Receiving Hall, picked up a pinch of floo powder from a small bowl on the fireplace mantel, and threw it onto the flames. When they lit up, he stepped in and through to "Wizengamot Waiting Room B" as he did every day.

The room was stark, bare of any decoration, with two long wooden benches on each side. The metal door was guarded, as ever, by a stoic Auror. Draco gave him a regal nod, then looked at the piece of parchment pinned above the fireplace. When he saw the name printed neatly next to the word Accused, his stomach lurched unpleasantly. With supreme effort he tried to regain control of his nausea. It wouldn't be the first time an Auror had to clean up his vomit from this room but his pride could only take so many times.

_Theodore Nott_

He hated testifying against friends the most but if he didn’t, or if he lied, Shacklebolt had made clear they would treat his defection as false. He’d be in Azkaban before he could blink and then there would be no hope of him saving his mother from the same fate as his father - at the very least Azkaban was better than the Kiss.

They might not have an ideology to manipulate him with but they used what they could.

 Draco woke that night with a scream stuck in his throat. The shadows of his bedroom were elongated, stretching thin tendrils towards him. His heart was beating out a rhythm of terror, his eyes darted around searching for a threat but he couldn't work out -

There was shrieking and laughter from across the road

"Johnny, Johnny, put me  _down_  you arse!"

"Uh-uh Susan! The challenge was put, the challenge -"

Their voices faded into the distance.

There was nothing for it now, he was too tightly wound. With a sigh he slipped out of bed, summoned his dressing gown, and spelled his candles to light up then, as he slid his shaking hand towards his cane, he felt the tell-tale twinge of a remembered curse slicing into his skin. With a cry he fell to the ground and grit his teeth. It was always worse at night, not that he knew why. The back of his knee was throbbing with remembered pain, there was the slightly sharp taste of blood on his tongue, and he was so close to losing himself in a memory.

He had to focus on the feel of wood beneath his legs. On the sound of Dipsy, his house-elf, hovering and talking about bringing him some soothing tea or on the smell of cherry blossoms wafting in on the crisp night air.

Then, then, his brain told him about the stench of a wizard’s blood and guts in a tiled hotel entrance. About the horrible gurgling noise someone was making that could only be from their own blood gathering inexorably in their throat as they choked. It told him about the cool tone of his father’s voice as he enunciated " _Crucio,_  Mr Potter." About his own footsteps clicking faster into the foyer, thinking he had heard wrong, smelt wrong, holding some awful muggle sustenance, saying "I bought us some food, I doubt it's better than swill but -" before stuttering to a stop and noticing the horrific reality: a dying Oliver Wood and tortured Harry Potter in the foyer of the Hilton. Then "Father, what are you doing? Stop!" He didn't want to hear the sounds he made after his  _expalliarmus_  failed and father turned wand on son, saying dismissively "What a disappointment. A blood traitor after all, Draco?"

The only odd thing was the sickeningly sweet smell of treacle tart wafting out from somewhere in... 

Oh.

He gave Dipsy a grotesque smile but it was there.

"Master should be eating" he said as he proffered a slice of tart just below his nose.

Draco pushed himself back onto his bed and did as commanded. Chew, focus on the slightly crumbly texture. Swallow, taste the slightly sweet syrup still on his tongue. Chew, feel the minute scratch on his tongue. Swallow, smell the treacle tart still waiting to be eaten. When it was done he reached out and wrapped his hands around the mug of tea on his bedside table. Then he took slow sips, focusing on his breathing as he went.

Eventually, he felt his eyes slip shut from pure exhaustion. Hopefully this time around he would be able to rest. When he woke it would be a new day and an old routine. He was used to it by now, well as used to it as he could be.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Title adapted from _I Was Only Nineteen_ by Redgum, an Australian tribute to Vietnam Veterans. With lyrics like "And Frankie kicked a mine the day that mankind kicked the moon // God help me - he was goin' home in June" or "And can you tell me, doctor, why I still can't get to sleep? // And night time's just a jungle dark and a barking M16?" the song changed Australian attitudes to Vietnam Vets and PTSD among returned soldiers.
> 
> It's worth having a listen.


End file.
